EDMONTON - A trio of researchers at the University of Alberta says oil sands reclamation isn’t doing everything companies are claiming.
The team, made up of Rebecca Rooney, David Schindler, and Suzanne Bailey, say the boggy peat land found in northeastern Alberta naturally traps and stores carbon pollution.
That land is being mined for oil and after the operation the oil companies reclaim the land, but the researchers say it’s not the same.
“The land will not be restored to its historic condition,” says Rooney, “Oil sands companies only need to reclaim the land. They do not need to restore it. And the statutory standard for what reclamation means is quite unclear.”
Much of the reclamation work replaces the existing wetlands with drier forest landscapes which will change the ecology.
“Although peat land may at first glance appear very wet because there aren’t big bodies of open water,” says Rooney, “They are in fact very wet habitats so they play a very important role in ground and surface water storage.”
The researchers say the cost of the lost potential of the pea lands positive effect on carbon has not been factored into the land use decisions of the approval process.
“What we really want the public to know is that oil sands mining companies are under no obligation to restore the land they disturb or to compensate for the wetlands that they destroy. And any suggestion that oil sands reclamation will put the land back exactly the way that it is, is nothing but greenwashing. ”
They argue if current development goes ahead peat land habitat about half the size of Edmonton will be lost.
They are calling for a more rigorous assessment of land reclamation projects in the oil sands.
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